


a bride in a red place

by Jagged



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-07
Updated: 2012-02-07
Packaged: 2017-10-30 18:57:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/334990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jagged/pseuds/Jagged
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not taking the throne was anything but a mistake, but even he can wonder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a bride in a red place

**Author's Note:**

> For Porn Battle, prompts 'teeth, lion, wolf, queen , ruin, honor, freedom'.

He wonders, sometimes, of what might have been had he made that mistake. Perhaps if Robert had died after the Trident, perhaps if he’d been less of a second son—there is a world, maybe, where he walked up the stairs to the throne and watched as Jaime Lannister’s smile slowly faded, made him kneel and swear fealty with blood still cool on his golden sword.

_You should have taken the realm for yourself_ , the queen tells him to his face, a bruise on her cheek and fire in her eyes and he wants to ask if he should have taken her as well. Would the lion have been any kinder to the wolf, or would she have turned her nose at him as she did the stag?

It is easy to imagine her stating, _A stag is only prey. Wolves have_ teeth.In hunting greens she is just a woman, and yet—if he lets himself, just for a moment, he can see her in furs again, too pale for snow but beautiful nonetheless. There is no just about her. 

A Northern king? But he would be lost here, in the heat and the brocade. The tilt of her head says she has seen the possibility of it, entertained it. 

There is a world where he wears a crown, and it must be heavy. There he has known her, in the dark, in the marriage bed. There she has sunk her nails into his back and said his name to his face, not shackled by titles or conflicts, pulled him close, perhaps. There he has knelt before her and meant nothing by it, other than duty or some mirage that would call itself love. 

There she looks at him, and she is just as trapped. 

The setting sun sets her ablaze, and he almost expects her to lift a hand to him as Robert did to her. Or she could push him to the ground, tear the silver hand of his office off and take him apart right here, devour him whole. She could make a ruin of him, his body, his name. He knows this and she knows this, and so she curls her claws, content that he understands. Cats are cruel like that, he knows, where a wolf is patient, overly so. 

Here, now, she is queen and she is beautiful, burning and green, and she kisses him. Her body presses against his, and then is gone. His hands have not left his side. The line of her mouth when she steps away is half a snarl and half a smile, and his lips burn where hers have touched. His teeth remember the scrape of hers. She could have had him here under the watchful gods, had him bleed and torn open as her brother once did a king, and he might have liked it better than this, promise and death now sown on land she knows will remember the fire of her, long after even honour is lost. 


End file.
